Mark Russell

Synecdoche, New York -- From the writer of Adaptation, Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is mounting a new play. His life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local regional theater in Schenectady, New York is looking bleak. His wife Adele (Catherine Keener) has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin, taking their young daught...

From Charlie Kaufman, comes a visual and philosophic adventure, "Synecdoche, New York." As he did with his groundbreaking scripts for "Being John Malkovich", "Adaptation", and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", Kaufman twists and subverts form and language as he delves into the mind of a man who, obsessed with his own mortality, sets out to construct a massive artistic enterprise that could give some meaning to his life. Theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is mounting a new play. His life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local regional theater in Schenectady, New York is looking bleak. His wife Adele (Catherine Keener) has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin, taking their young daughter Olive with her. His therapist, Madeleine Gravis (Hope Davis), is better at plugging her best-seller than she is at counseling him. A new relationship with the alluringly candid Hazel (Samantha Morton) has prematurely run aground. And a mysterious condition is systematically shutting down each of his autonomic functions, one by one. Worried about the transience of his life, he leaves his home behind. He gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in New York City, hoping to create a work of brutal honesty. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a growing mock-up of the city outside. The years rapidly fold into each other, and Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece, but the textured tangle of real and theatrical relationships blurs the line between the world of the play and that of Caden's own deteriorating reality.

From the writer of ADAPTATION, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. Theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is mounting a new play. His life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local regional theater in Schenectady, New York is looking bleak. His wife Adele (Catherine Keener) has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin, taking their young daughter Olive with her. Worried about the transience of his life, he leaves his home behind. He gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in New York City, hoping to create a work of brutal honesty. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a growing mockup of the city outside. The years rapidly fold into each other, and Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece, but the textured tangle of real and theatrical relationships blurs the line between the world of the play and that of Caden's own deteriorating reality.

Grace, a small-town English widow, discovers after her husband's suicide that he has squandered all their money and left her bankrupt -- and the banks are ready to reposes everything. Faced with impending doom, and with marketable few skills aside from her "green thumb," she struggles to save her home. Matthew, her financially struggling gardener who needs money to marry his sweetheart, suggests using her greenhouse to grow marijuana for the money they both need. When this plan succeeds, Grace takes the crop to London and tries to sell it to a ruthless but charming drug dealer. It all gets wild and crazy after that! Starring Golden Globe-winner Brenda Blethyn ("Introducing the Dwights," "Atonement") as Grace, and Emmy Award-nominee Craig Ferguson (TV's "The Late Show with Craig Ferguson," "I'll Be There") as Matthew. Ferguson also produced and wrote this film!